In December and January the Partridge/Ravitz family of Takoma Park traveled to India and Kenya. The children Irene and Cheney wrote journals of their adventures.
Their sister Sally and their father Larry took photos. Here are excerpts of their photo-journal. of India. Their adventures in Kenya, (visiting Maasai who stayed at their home last year while performing in the US) will follow in a future issue of the Voice.
GLOBETROTTERS:
Seeing India for the first time
by Irene and Cheney Ravitz
Photos by Sally and Larry Ravitz
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We left home on November 26, 2005 and flew for 7 hours to Paris. It took us 19 hours to travel on to India. We were jet-lagged and went to sleep at 6am in New Delhi at the fanciest hotel I had ever been to. It was called The Imperial Hotel. When we woke up, I went bird watching with my godfather, my father and my sister in parks and fields around Delhi. I noticed some pretty bad smells, and also saw many birds. |
The next day, we went to the India Gate, a huge arch built in 1947, honoring India's independence from England. There were loads of "hawkers," or people selling stuff.
One cool thing at the India Gate was a snake charmer. He was blowing a loud flute that seemed to hypnotize his cobra. The man put his snake around the back of my neck. The snake felt cold; his head was all puffed up. It was weird, but not too scary.
The snake charmer wanted money from us. We gave him some but not as much as he was asking, and he was irritated with us. I notice that everyone here is trying to get money from tourists. You have to be careful about taking pictures of people, or saying yes to anything or even looking at anything! --Cheney
There are sacred cows everywhere. You have to watch out, sometimes they will butt you from behind, and to make it worse, some of them have horns! --Irene
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People make their living in all kinds of ways. We saw one man with trained monkeys and another who was a snake charmer.
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At the bazaar you can even get a custom drawn henna tattoo.
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We left New Delhi and drove all day to Laxman Jhula in the northern state of Uttaranchal. The Himalayan Mountains start rising up here. There is no meat sold in the whole state of Uttranchal.
Laxman Jhula is just north of Rishikesh, on the Ganges River. The Ganges is a holy river for the Hindus, and the town we are in is a place where pilgrims come to bathe in the river and visit the temples. Holy men wear orange or red. People come from all over India, and they take water home with them. —Cheney |
Laxman Jhula was beautiful. Walking across the footbridges was a scary, but worth it. The view of the bridges and from the bridges was spectacular. I plan to go back to Laxman Jhula. This place was a highlight of my trip. New Delhi is big and crowded, but Laxman Jhula is a small town where I made friends and felt at home. —Irene
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We fell in love with the Hindu god Ganesh, son of Shiva.
I can tell the story of how Ganesh got his elephant head.
Ganesh is a good luck god. He's very popular. —Irene
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We discovered a sandy beach on the Ganges, where I played with an Indian boy named Deepak. We made a dam, dug holes, made sand balls and we whacked the sand with big pieces of driftwood. It was really fun, even though we didn't speak the same language. —Cheney |
I learned that I prefer a camel ride to an elephant ride. I was positive the elephant was going to tip over and squash us. The camel felt like a horse. We galloped. I loved it! —Irene
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